About Girls
by november shivers
Summary: Sirius and Remus have a conversation about girls. But not really. Oneshot, slash.


**Title:** About Girls  
**Pairing:** Sirius/Remus  
**Warnings:** Drinking, boykissing. Slightly fluffy.  
**Summary:** 1,964 words. A conversation about girls. But not really.  
**Disclaimer:** Nothing's mine. Dx  
**Author's Note:** My first S/R fanfiction.

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The party was in full-swing now, and when they'd stopped pushing their way through the hoard of students, Remus realized that Sirius was nearly shouting to be heard over the noise.

"They're just girls, Moony," he was insisting, waving a hand in a gesture of forced indifference upon noticing the heated glare Remus had been throwing the throng of females they had just escaped from.

Remus' slow response was to shrug noncommittally, avoiding Sirius' gaze as he sat down on what he had claimed from the beginning of the party to be _his _couch, his eyes unwillingly flickering back towards the concerned stare his friend was giving him amidst the ruckus that was a Gryffindor end-of-school party. Of course, to most of the house, it simply meant an excuse to get completely drunk, as only a handful of Gryffindors were actually leaving school this year. Remus couldn't decide whether this year's was worse than usual or if it was just him, but Sirius didn't seem to be having that good of a time either. Or at least he hadn't since Remus had pulled him away from everyone.

What had he been thinking? Feeling guilty, Remus nodded and tore his gaze away from Sirius in favor of the peeling label on the bottle he'd subconsciously picked up, proclaiming '_Wizard's finest scotch since 1843_…'

A blast of music suddenly shook the common room as someone on the other side made the mistake of turning on a record player at full volume. Groans and giggles followed when the music had turned down enough to hear them, and Remus stretched uncomfortably, eyes drifting uninterestedly through the crowd.

"I've got a head ache. Come back to the dorm with me," Sirius commanded in the brief beat of silence in which the record skipped a few measures. Remus looked up, surprised that his friend was even still standing there. Sirius hadn't done anywhere near his usual amount of his partying tonight, nor was he making his usual attempt to. Before Remus could invent a reason for this, Sirius had already stood up and started taking long, confident strides towards the stairs, easily parting the crowd with self-assurance alone.

Remus didn't get through so easily - he had to slide between and beneath a number of otherwise occupied couples and murmur "excuse me" to several drunken Hufflepuffs (he had no idea how _they'd_ been allowed in) before he had made it across the room, and by the time he'd done that, he was feeling, for the first time, considerably glad he wouldn't have to feel responsible for rules he didn't enforce in his seventh year.

Sirius was waiting for him when he reached the foot of the stairs and looking oddly distracted. "I really don't feel well," he informed Remus, who noticed that his voice was hoarse from all the shouting.

"Maybe you've had too much to drink," Remus suggested, but Sirius, rather than paying attention, was eyeing something on the far edge of the crowd with a sudden resentment. Remus waited before some drunken boy had jostled him (twice) to take Sirius by the sleeve and tug him away. As Sirius began to turn, Remus managed to catch sight of what had preoccupied him - a curtain of red hair half-covering too faces, a very recognizable couple twisted together in an armchair meant to seat one. Oh.

"What a lousy turn-out," Sirius complained with a forced cheerfulness as they were trudging up the stairs.

Remus frowned. One party to the next was exactly the same to him. Sirius' gloomy mood did not raise his spirits, however, and even when they had closed the door behind them, they could hear the noises of things breaking and drunken laughter (he thought he could pick out Peter's) from down below them, and he didn't feel a whole lot happier.

Sirius immediately collapsed on the edge of Remus' bed, staring intensely up at the canopy as his eyebrows knitted together in an expression that Remus immediately recognized to mean there was something on his mind. Whether or not it was important, Sirius had dragged him up here and away from the party for a reason, and it wasn't because of a head-ache.

He hesitantly sat down beside him, picking up a book he'd left on his bedspread to occupy himself with while he waited for Sirius to put his problem into words. It took a few moments for Sirius, amid his inner dilemma, to notice what he was up to - but as usual, the need to distract Remus from his book was enough to help him find his voice.

"_Reading_," Sirius sighed irritably, "You're always reading. We just came from a party and you're _reading_."

Although he hadn't actually been concentrating on the book in the first place, Remus refused to look up, "You said it wasn't a good party anyway."

"It wasn't a good party, but you still shouldn't be reading. Out of _principle_," Sirius said, borrowing one of Remus' over-used phrases, and Remus could tell he was working out a way to fix this into his topic. As expected, he wasn't making much sense. "That must be why."

"Must be why what?" Remus asked indulgently, fidgeting idly with the frayed corner of the book cover.

"Why you don't have a fan club. I can't believe that. Girls are so strange."

Remus didn't know whether he should be flattered by this or stunned at Sirius' surmounting naivety when it came to the opposite gender, seeing as he took the opportunity to snog several of them at least every other night. Either way, Sirius wasn't tying this into reading nearly as well as they'd hoped; it was obvious by his frustrated expression this wasn't the way he'd wanted the conversation to work out at all.

"Not really. I'm just not that popular."

That obviously wasn't where Sirius wanted to the conversation to go either.

"But why am I?" Sirius demanded, effortlessly turning the conversation back to himself (because that was what he was best at) while watching Remus expectantly. "Why pick me?" he continued. He was trying to gain Remus' sympathy, and he wasn't getting it.

"Are you looking for compliments?"

"No! I just mean…Girls are always going to be there with me. Messing things up. I just…" he trailed off.

Remus smirked at his book. "And you're complaining. Poor Sirius Black, the misunderstood heartthrob. Someone ought to tell the fan club," he joked. Sirius didn't look amused.

"I _mean_," Sirius sighed, stretching his arms as he sat up and suddenly regarding Remus with an eager expression that pressured Remus into glancing up from his book, "We'll all have wives someday, right? And we'll have family get-togethers like James' parents do."

Unsure of what Sirius was getting at, Remus shrugged a shoulder and dropped his gaze again until a tanned Sirius-hand reached across the bed and easily pulled it away from his grip. He was determined to be heard and in his usual "pay attention to me and only me" mode. The alcohol was only making it that much worse. "James has got Lily already. And Pete's got Marsha or whatever her name is. And one day you'll have some scholarly bird who will find your obsession with literature horrendously sexy."

'_No, I won't_,' Remus thought adamantly, but didn't voice it, as he had caught on by this point that this was another rant about JamesandLily. "Her name is Maria, not Marsha," Remus corrected.

"Oh, whatever," said Sirius, throwing up her hands in frustration, "You're missing the point. The point is that the Marauders are breaking up. S'just like those Beatles, you know? Women."

_'Well, why didn't you just say that in the first place?'_ Remus wanted to demand, but he didn't, because he knew that he himself could be just as confusing and didn't want to sound like a hypocrite. Remus floundered for some well-meant advice. "Things change, Sirius. James will still spend time with us, and so will Peter. We just have to accept the way things come." Even to his ears, it sounded weak.

"I don't like change," Sirius said stubbornly, and Remus sighed. _Me either_. They sat in companionable silence for a brief moment, but, as this was Sirius, it didn't last long. "We have to do something. We were all doing fine before Lily came along. Pass me that bottle, will you?"

Remus then realized that, out of habit, he had carried the bottle of scotch up to the dorm with them. _Stupid, stupid, stupid…_He reluctantly complied, even though it was obvious from the way Sirius was going on that he'd already had a bit too much for one night.

Sirius took the bottle and unabashedly tilted it back to pour a few swallows into his mouth; he made a face but managed to down it all. "That stuff is _strong_," he commented. Remus raised his eyebrows and desperately wished he had his book back. He also wished, with a hint of irritation, that _he'd _been offered some alcohol, so at least he wouldn't be alone in sobriety.

A few moments later, Sirius continued to take small sips from the bottle, and Remus managed to discreetly retrieve _Death of a Salesman _from where Sirius had discarded it and plunge back into the play while Sirius continued to drink. Remus didn't bother to try to stop him.

It was late - the sounds downstairs were growing softer. Most everyone had probably passed out. Peter and James hadn't returned - meaning they'd either gone off with their respective girlfriends or collapsed on a floor somewhere. Remus rubbed his eyes wearily, turned the page and then - then the book was pulled from his grasp. Remus started before realizing that Sirius, who was called "Padfoot" for a reason, had quietly crawled _very_ close to him and was perched over him in a position that looked a bit uncomfortable with a glazed look in his eyes. Remus glanced towards the scotch bottle, only to notice that it was nearly empty. Great. He definitely should have taken that away from him a lot earlier, but he'd forgotten, and now -

"Why're you always reading?" Sirius slurred, the breath that mingled with Remus' tasting strongly alcoholic and a bit intoxicating. He moved a bit closer, and Remus scrambled backwards.

Now he was in big trouble.

"Er," said Remus, "I don't know. I just like to, I suppose." He shifted uncomfortably. He was pressed against the headboard.

"Just like to," Sirius repeated, and his hand slowly, slowly reached up as if it was about to thread into Remus' hair but stopped just short of doing so. A look passed between them as Sirius' eyes flashed in sudden clear-headedness, reminding Remus of the last time _that_ had happened. The last mistake they'd made.

Remus had been drunk then too, but it had been right before what had become known to the group as The Prank, the _incident_ that had formed a tension between them that hadn't been there before. So they'd never had a chance to talk about it, and Remus had assumed they never would. However, he'd also assumed the night wouldn't repeat itself.

Remus was sure Sirius couldn't get any closer, but the wild racing of his pulse seemed to think otherwise.

"I don't really want to talk about girls," Sirius murmured, his lips inches from Remus'.

"Me either," breathed Remus.

And then Sirius kissed him, and it was even better than Remus remembered, because suddenly it didn't matter that Sirius was very drunk and Remus was moving his head too much and that tomorrow Sirius might forget or pretend this never happened. Because-

"I'm sorry," Sirius sighed into his mouth, and suddenly the party didn't seem like such a waste after all.


End file.
